Despite being one of the maximum famous and popular dinosaurs, we’re nevertheless gaining knowledge of matters approximately the Tyrannosaurus rex these days. Scientists have recently discovered that T. Rex in all likelihood originated in North America as opposed to Asia, which became previously thought.
Let’s imagine for a minute that one way or the other T. Rex survived the mass extinction of dinosaurs that took place 66 million years ago while a big meteor hit the Earth. How might a T. Rex live to tell the tale in nowadays’s international? Would human beings take safaris to view T. Rex in its natural habitat, like we do apex predators, which includes lions? Or might we stay in steady worry of being eaten or trampled? Could the weather even assist any such massive animal?
T. Rex: Size and Behavior
Before we believe T. Rex in today’s international, allow’s check how T. Rex lived. T. Rex become a fearsome predator, reaching 12 toes excessive and forty toes long. Scientists estimate T. Rex weighed round 11,000 to fifteen,500 pounds or more. That’s a touch heavier than the average African elephant (these days’s largest land animal), which weighs round 12,000 kilos. At 12 ft, T. Rex become additionally slightly taller than an African elephant, which commonly stands 10 to 11 toes on the shoulder, even though the largest men can attain up to 13 ft.
It’s tough to imagine how fearsome a massive elephant could be if it hunted stay prey in preference to munching on grass and twigs. Through fossil markings, scientists understand that T. Rex hunted live prey and swallowed portions complete. The dinosaur couldn’t use its palms to consume, and it didn’t bite. So it ripped off portions of flesh and bone. Then swallowed them complete, the usage of its neck muscular tissues to flop its head returned and circulate the meals to the lower back of its neck. This is called “inertial feeding,” and it’s what birds and crocodiles do today.
As for what turned into on its food plan, probable pretty much whatever it got here across. Scientists have proof it possibly ate a food regimen of plant-eating dinosaurs, including Edmontosaurus and Triceratops.
What Would Be on T. Rex’s Diet if It Lived Today?
Evidence shows that T. Rex ate different big dinosaurs. For instance, Triceratops is anticipated to weigh as much as round 17,000 kilos, that is similar to or slightly heavier than the largest T. Rex specimens. We don’t recognize exactly how dinosaurs’ metabolism worked. However, scientists estimate the T. Rex’s metabolism may also have fallen someplace between that of a crocodile and a heat-blooded predator. Imagine our fictional T. Rex weighs thirteen,000 kilos and needs to devour 15% of its frame weight every week to continue to exist. In this situation, it might need about 1,950 kilos of food. That equals about humans per day.
Where Would T. Rex Live Today?
Although the quit of the Cretaceous period become cooler than it have been formerly, it became nevertheless a great deal hotter than today. The world then had a greenhouse weather, and what’s the American West these days might have been a lush surroundings. We can speculate that if come what may the T. Rex had now not died out, it may have migrated south to warmer climates, perhaps dwelling in Florida or Louisiana these days.
Assuming the T. Rex commenced its migration after the land bridges now not existed, it’d be trapped in North and South America. Although we often imagine dinosaurs traipsing via tropical rainforests, in reality, the dimensions of T. Rex might have made this nearly impossible. Large herbivores saved the land clean and open with their massive diets of plant life. A T. Rex could not have navigated nicely in a dense forest with close tree trunks, but wished open space to transport.
It’s viable that today’s modern-day environment, wherein humans have cleared forests to make room for civilization, might be a really perfect open region for a T. Rex to roam. Although human beings would have had to plot no longer most effective earthquake and storm-safe buildings, but structures strong enough to resist a T. Rex assault. We can believe T. Rexes might also have roamed the American South, where the climate is hotter. It probably wouldn’t keep on with heavily forested areas, but could probable choose open areas in which it hunted cattle and possibly humans as properly.
Could Humans Control T. Rex?
If alive nowadays, the T. Rex, like different apex predators these days, would be a wild and unpredictable animal. Assuming that human beings developed inside the same way and had current-day era, it’s viable that people might have hunted T. Rex to smaller numbers. It is probably endangered species nowadays.
